LOUISVILLE -- A long-blighted, vacant Safeway store fronted by a massive unused parking lot will soon make way for a 111-unit high-end apartment complex and an Alfalfa's Market grocery store, after the Louisville City Council gave final approval Tuesday night to the redevelopment project.

The 7-0 vote came more than two years after developer Jim Loftus organized a neighborhood meeting and first pitched a revamp of the 5-acre site at the northwest corner of South Boulder Road and Centennial Drive, where Safeway closed its doors more than three years ago.

Demolition of the 54,000-square-foot Safeway building, which opened in the early 1980s, could begin later this month. Razing the building could take four weeks.

Groundbreaking on the new buildings could begin in September, with the Alfalfa's opening in the spring and the residences opening in the fall of 2014.

Mike Mulhern, chief architect for the $31 million project dubbed Center Court Village, said plazas and widened sidewalks in and around the site will make the layout alluring for residents and shoppers.

"We're taking a retail big-box development and associated parking lot and we're redeveloping the site as a pedestrian-friendly community," he said. "And as you know, Alfalfa's is incredibly green."

Long time in the making

Tuesday's vote marks the end of a sometimes-tortured process that packed council chambers with earnest residents on numerous occasions.

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"I am pleased with how this project has come together," Mayor Bob Muckle told Loftus' team Tuesday. "And I commend you for your stick-to-itiveness."

Back in June 2011, Loftus' plan was much different than the one that moves forward now.

Then, the project was comprised of 195 rental units with 10,000 square feet of retail, but residents turned out en masse at City Hall to condemn the plan as too dense and not in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood. They also said commercial space was lacking in the proposal.

Despite Loftus' willingness to reduce the size of the project, the City Council rejected it last year.

Soon after, Loftus returned to the city with an even more scaled-back residential proposal and an Alfalfa's on the corner. The new proposal met with significant public approval, largely because of the natural grocer's presence in the plan.

Resident Aquiles La Grave, who led a citizens group opposing Loftus' original plans, said the version before the council Tuesday represents a "balanced approach" to apportioning the commercial and residential components of the project. Building heights were also scaled back from four stories to three.

"Great towns are built on compromise, and we are thrilled with the outcome," he said.

La Grave gives credit to his fellow residents, who helped coax Boulder-based Alfalfa's to come to Louisville to build its second store by sending the company alfalfa seeds in the mail.

"I stand in awe of what citizen involvement is capable of yielding in the face of significant resistance from a city staff that had made a determination that the site was no longer viable for commercial development," he said.

Alfalfa's a little bigger

The plan approved Tuesday has evolved little since the City Council gave its blessing last November to the overall proposal to redevelop the site. In addition to the 111 rental units spread across three buildings, the residential portion comes with a 156-space underground parking garage.

There are an additional 140 surface parking spaces, and Loftus has dedicated 41 of those spaces for night use by residents.

The Alfalfa's, at 27,800 square feet, is a bit larger than it was in the earlier proposal. Included in that total is a 1,000-square-foot community room. There will also be an 8,000-square-foot commercial building near the natural grocer.

The city estimates that Alfalfa's will generate $3 million in sales tax revenues for Louisville over a decade and employ 100 full-time and part-time employees. Traffic studies show that Loftus' development will generate 3,750 vehicle trips a day, far fewer than a fully functioning big-box grocer like Safeway would.

Even so, the revitalization of the site should help reverse the declining fortunes of many of the businesses at the west end of Village Square Shopping Center, which have been without an anchor for three years.

Loftus said he's happy the end of a long process has finally arrived.

"Everyone's anxious to get going," he said, as he packed up his materials and left City Hall.

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